Preview — The Wanderground
by Sally Miller Gearhart

The Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women

This novel tells of a world in which men and women are separated, with women fleeing to the hills for freedom while men remain in the cities. Women gain telepathic abilities, unique flying and healing techniques, and go on duty to assist women in the cities still struggling for enlightenment.

Community Reviews

"There are no words more obscene than 'I can't live without you.' Count them the deepest affront to the person." This idea is presented in the opening chapter of Sally Miller Gearhart's The Wanderground and, based on this, among other elements of that first chapter, I thought I might like this book. This does turn out to be an important idea in the book, but ultimately I could not get into The Wanderground. There are a couple of reasons for this.

The first is that The Wanderground, well, it kind"There are no words more obscene than 'I can't live without you.' Count them the deepest affront to the person." This idea is presented in the opening chapter of Sally Miller Gearhart's The Wanderground and, based on this, among other elements of that first chapter, I thought I might like this book. This does turn out to be an important idea in the book, but ultimately I could not get into The Wanderground. There are a couple of reasons for this.

The first is that The Wanderground, well, it kind of wanders. It does have a narrative, but it lacks a narrative drive or structure to help propel the reader through the text. In the end, there are only two reasons to keep reading the book: 1) enjoyment of the New Age-y spiritual tone of the book (I did not enjoy this), or 2) the (as it turns out, vain) hope that the source of the hill women's psychic powers and supernatural abilities (flying, communicating psychically not only with other humans but also with animals and trees and rivers (what.), and somehow preventing men's penises, technology, and weapons from working outside the limits of the city) would be explained. Eventually, Gearhart does describe more of the history of these hill women, who live in scattered communities throughout the countryside, reproducing themselves somehow without men (also not clearly explained if at all) and spending a lot of time guarding their borders and communing spiritually. But this history comes too little too late to make this a compelling narrative. And it still lacks some crucial details. How did the technology stop working? Magic? This isn't presented as a fantasy book but as a science fiction book, so I kept reading for explanations and feeling frustrated when I didn't find them.

The second reason I couldn't really get into the book was more ideological. There are some neat ideas within the wandering and the vagueness, but even those are often couched in problematic or troubling language. This book, written in the late 1970s, is born from a particular moment and particular tradition of feminist thought, one that I have never been able to endorse fully. At best, I have only been able to recognize why this approach might appeal to others and why it might seem, in the short term, useful. This type of feminism focuses primarily on "female nature" and the special gifts of women. It is essentialist (all women share this nature and these gifts and men do not), divisive, and can be harmful, both to the feminist movement and to human relationships.

Gearhart mostly seems to endorse this brand of feminism, but she does provide a brief critique of this idea as well. She has one of the benign male characters say the following:

"Just like every woman from the dawn of time. You demand your holy isolation from men so you can develop your unique female powers, but you are threatened to the core by the suggestion that we [men:] have equally unique powers--don't even whisper that they might be equally valuable."

This is an interesting response to the difference feminist insistence on the value of women's experience as somehow not only unique but also integral to women's being and value; however, it is not really followed up on, either in the discussion in which this statement is made or in the narrative. The tension presented here is allowed to just kind of fade into the background of the book as the final chapters move on to deal with a different issue.

In that final chapter another promising yet problematic idea is presented. The task of these women as they see it is to save the mother, the planet from ecological destruction and violence. Their task is this:

"To work as if the earth, the mother, can be saved. To work as if our healing care were not too late.Work to stay the slayer's hand,Helping him to changeOr helping him to die. Work as if the earth, the mother, can be saved."

Despite my discomfort with Earth Mother rhetoric generally (seeing women as close to nature in a way that men are not has a long and troubling history) and despite my dislike of the casting of men as slayers (this casting is made even more clear contextually before this chant), I do really like the idea of working as if it's not too late, working to make things better even if success is not certain....more

This book is more fun to talk and think about in a historical context than it is to actually read. I chose to read it because I wanted to see how the author, the founder of the first women's studies department in the united states, used her imagination outside of academic discourse.

The lesbian utopia Gearhart has imagined is a series of snapshots into the lives of many hill women. This book was hard to follow in the traditional sense of how a novel is normally expected to be put together. I sawThis book is more fun to talk and think about in a historical context than it is to actually read. I chose to read it because I wanted to see how the author, the founder of the first women's studies department in the united states, used her imagination outside of academic discourse.

The lesbian utopia Gearhart has imagined is a series of snapshots into the lives of many hill women. This book was hard to follow in the traditional sense of how a novel is normally expected to be put together. I saw the lack of beginning, middle, and end as an intentional rejection of the prescribed way in which a writer is expected to format a story. The seemingly disjointed overview works well to paint a portrait of a collective of women who rely on telepathy, emotion, and the communal experience of the processing of trauma as their way of life.

This book precursors many ways of thinking about feminism and regionless forms of communication. The hill women's treatment of humans, animals, and plant life as equals and essential to life's vitality, lays a historical ground work for early thinking in ecofeminism.

I went to a lecture that mentioned this book where the lecturer suggested that Gearhart's use of telepathy also interestingly mirrors current usages of Internet communities in terms of how international activist communities have utilized the Internet for organizing, as well as things like individual and group instant messaging in relationship to Gearhart's concept of mindstretching and gatherstretching. I also thought the remember rooms sometimes mirrored what it is like to use Internet search engines.

I would definitely recommend this book as an interesting look into a true lesbian separatist utopia imagined in the late 70s. Very fun to talk about, even though it was a slightly tedious read. ...more

This is a fabulous feminist science fiction novel. Visionary. It is a compelling mixture of Utopian/Dystopian fiction. I really loved this book. It is harrowing and hopeful, sad and joyful. The basis of the story is that the Earth is revolting against partiarchy and industrialism and one day all the machines stop working... men become impotent (or infertile I forget which) and women are enslaved with the ruling men in the cities. Radical womyn begin escaping into the country and start beautifulThis is a fabulous feminist science fiction novel. Visionary. It is a compelling mixture of Utopian/Dystopian fiction. I really loved this book. It is harrowing and hopeful, sad and joyful. The basis of the story is that the Earth is revolting against partiarchy and industrialism and one day all the machines stop working... men become impotent (or infertile I forget which) and women are enslaved with the ruling men in the cities. Radical womyn begin escaping into the country and start beautiful communities where they learn skills we as humyns hadn't tapped into in a long time (if ever) such as willful telepathy, flying, ect. They lead rescue parties into the cities to extract more womyn. You get the idea. Great read. ...more

This was a great concept and full of vivid description and the consistent presentation of a plausible utopia that is gynocratic in nature. However, the lack of a clear protagonist made it some what of a drag to read. Page after page passed by without any character interaction or development and as a reader who prefers engaging characters to a blanket imagining of concept, this fell a little flat for me. Nonetheless, there is a lot to appreciate here if you have an interest in utopian sci-fi or tThis was a great concept and full of vivid description and the consistent presentation of a plausible utopia that is gynocratic in nature. However, the lack of a clear protagonist made it some what of a drag to read. Page after page passed by without any character interaction or development and as a reader who prefers engaging characters to a blanket imagining of concept, this fell a little flat for me. Nonetheless, there is a lot to appreciate here if you have an interest in utopian sci-fi or the study of genre and how it is transcended.

Some of the dialogue suffers from the past three decades of pop-culture and characters using terms like "earth touch" and "retro-sense" reads a little like being at a hokey self help seminar. Furthermore, once you get over the wording and start to appreciate the concept of a world in which new-age holistic therapy is highly effective, Gearhart drops the ideas and runs with an extended recount of how the society came about.

I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did. However, if you are the sort of reader who can get carried away with the presentation of a fictional world without needing to relate to any of the people within it, I'd say that you'll probably really enjoy this....more

It's always unfortunate when feminism turns into anti-man sexism. It was a good book, but thematically bleh. Do radical feminists actually think that all men want to rape them (unless they're gay, of course, in which case they're mildly more acceptable). The anti-man thing was never really challenged in the book, so I have to assume that this is what the author actually believes to be a good thing.

I'm about 75 pages in, and so far, I can definitely see why this is a historically significant work, but it's not that interesting. It's territory that is much better covered by Russ in the Female Man, LeGuin in Always Coming Home, and the work of Charnas. Definitely a reflection of the dominant cultural feminist framework of the time. Having completed the novel, I have a bit more appreciation for it's attempt to create an alternative narrative form, although it's not altogether successful. TheI'm about 75 pages in, and so far, I can definitely see why this is a historically significant work, but it's not that interesting. It's territory that is much better covered by Russ in the Female Man, LeGuin in Always Coming Home, and the work of Charnas. Definitely a reflection of the dominant cultural feminist framework of the time. Having completed the novel, I have a bit more appreciation for it's attempt to create an alternative narrative form, although it's not altogether successful. The last half of the novel has fragments that are a bit more conventional, that provide some sense of how the utopian society came into being. In response to an increasingly explicitly patriarchal and repressive society, women begin to escape to the hills and form there own society, which is paralleled by a series of unexplained mystical happenings, which make sense within a cultural feminist framework. Most of the early stories deal with healing, either of animals or women harmed by men, building an implicitly holistic worldview of the society, which is opposed to the society that they fled from in the later sections....more

Many women have left the Cities and live in the wilderness in harmony with nature through their psychic powers. They can communicate telepathically, monitor the borders at a distance, heal, fly, levitate objects, and reproduce without men.

Men cannot enter the women's land without dying, and cannot even leave the cities without becoming impotent. Also machines and guns won't work outside of the cities. There are some women still in the cites but they are brutally oppA lesbian separatist utopia.

Many women have left the Cities and live in the wilderness in harmony with nature through their psychic powers. They can communicate telepathically, monitor the borders at a distance, heal, fly, levitate objects, and reproduce without men.

Men cannot enter the women's land without dying, and cannot even leave the cities without becoming impotent. Also machines and guns won't work outside of the cities. There are some women still in the cites but they are brutally oppressed by the men. There are a few men who are a little bit psychic and not violent, they try to help the women but do not live with them, They are called Gentles.

I can see where people get the idea that lesbians hate men. The basic premiss of the story is that men are inherently violent and it is impossible for women and men to live, work, or love together, and the earth is going to die unless the men are killed, or change. There is some lip-service given to the idea that not all men are awful all the time, and maybe men can change. But overall it is very anti-male.

The female society she creates is a lot like the one in Ursula LeQuin's "Always Coming Home". Only that society included men.

The women are presented realistically, they are not saints, and the depiction of the psychic powers is unique and vivid. It takes up most of the book.

I'm not a man so I was not put off by the anti-male anger. I understand where it comes from and I can let it go. I don't feel that way about men but I understand why some women do. But most men will have trouble enjoying this book.

EDIT: Looking over the other reviews:

Christy is right about this being a period piece and advocating an essentialist view of feminism. I wrote my Women's Studies paper on the Essentialist and the Egalitarian branches of Feminism. There is a compromise between pretending there is no difference between men and women and insisting that all women share an essential feminine nature (and all men have an essentially masculine nature). Estrogen and testosterone do make a difference. Femininity and masculinity are real. But it is too simple to say that all women are feminine and all men are masculine. Even in the eighties I got in trouble in women's groups for being "too masculine".

This book does not really have a plot. It is a series of vignettes. I read that as a deliberate decision to abandon masculine linear narrative for a more feminine enfolding. (see Monique Wittig for more of this sort of feminine narrative.)

Two common complaints in the other review are: the spiritual tone, and the failure to explain how the psychic powers work. I believe these two complaints are related. What people are reading as "spiritual" is meant to be taken literately. (As in the movie Avatar.) The power of the women comes from the earth. The Consciousness of the Earth awoke and granted these powers to those women who could receive them. The women's powers come from the whole conscious biosphere and all the living creatures they connect with. But the women do not totally understand their own powers. The women know they can do some things but they don't know why the men can't leave the cities. The major plot point (such as it is) of the book is that the Gentles (the gentle men) have discovered that the mere presence of empowered women suppresses the violence (and technology) of men. This (beginnings of a) plot point occurs at the end of the book, along with the revelation that the Gentles can communicate psychically when working together. I would have liked to see these two revelations explored in greater detail. The end felt like the first book of a trilogy. ...more

Worth reading, but primarily because it is revered by the Fem Sci Fi folk. I did not enjoy this one as much because it's lighter than the average and a little bit fluffy. Okay, so I like my Fem Sci Fi man-hating. Still, if one wants to get a full rounded look at this genre, this title is a must.

The most enjoyable of the women's press sf label books that I have read so far. Fluffy and wandering in many ways, and the anti-science, 70s/80s mysticism is a little bit too much for me at some points, but otherwise really interesting exploration of the idea of lesbian separatist Utopias.

Sally Miller Gearhart is an American teacher, feminist, science fiction writer, and political activist. In 1973 she became the first open lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position when she was hired by San Francisco State University, where she helped establish one of the first women and gender study programs in the country. She later became a nationally known gay rights activist.